Sheet pile locks are well known in the art. They allow forming a connection between sheet piling elements by sliding or by threading a longitudinally extending lock strip of a first sheet pile element into a longitudinally extending lock chamber of a second sheet pile element.
In such sheet pile connections, there is always a certain functional play or clearance between the interlocking lock parts. Therefore, if a sheet pile wall has to be relatively tight, it is known to equip the sheet pile locks with seals sealing the play or clearance between the interlocking lock parts.
Various methods and tools have already been proposed for forming a seal directly in a lock chamber of a sheet pile.
According to the method disclosed in DE 27 22 978, a sealing product of a paste-like consistency is applied under pressure onto the bottom wall of the lock chamber. The still malleable bead is then spread and shaped with a kind of “scraper blade”. This “scraper blade” confers to the bead the desired shape on the lock chamber walls, before the sealing product hardens by polymerization.
According to the method disclosed in EP 0 695 832, the sealing material is introduced into the locking chamber by a tool comprising several recesses, which extend in the longitudinal direction of the locking chamber and correspond in their cross-section to the desired profiled shape of the seal. This tool comprises a through-going transverse bore which extends directly into these recesses. Through this transverse bore, the sealing material is pressed into the recesses, wherein the sealing material is profiled and receives its final shape in the recesses of the tool.
According to the method disclosed in DE 43 45 026, the seal is formed by a tool comprising a central feeding chamber provided with a dorsal entrance bore communicating with a reservoir or other means for supplying the sealing compound. This central feeding chamber is a space directly delimited in the lock chamber (i.e. by the walls of the lock chamber), wherein it axially extends between a front-end guide block of the tool, which has a cross-section which is substantially identical to the lock chamber for guiding the tool in the latter, and a rear-end seal shaping mandrel of the tool, for shaping the sealing material at the outlet of the central feeding chamber. The seal shaping mandrel has a cross-section determining in cooperation with the walls of the lock chamber the final profile of the seal. For this purpose the mandrel includes several longitudinally extending recesses, which axially open into the central feeding chamber. When carrying out the proposed method, the sealing material is injected into the central feeding chamber, so as to always completely fill the lock chamber between the front-end guide block and the rear-end mandrel. The tool is longitudinally moved through the lock chamber. From the central feeding chamber, the sealing material flows axially along the mandrel and through the recesses in the latter, which confer the final profile to the seal.
These prior art methods basically allow producing sheet pile seals with a relatively simple profile. However, when trying to produce sheet pile seals with more complicated profiles, such as e.g. sheet pile seals including longitudinally extending seal lips of different cross-sections, which have to be precisely dimensioned and arranged within the lock chamber, then the result achieved with these prior art methods is not very satisfactory. Indeed, with the prior art methods, such seal lips are often either incompletely formed, or are deformed because the sealing material bulges at the outlet of the seal shaping tool.
An object underlying the proposed invention is consequently, to provide a method for forming a seal in a lock chamber of a sheet pile, which allows to achieve more precise and complicated sheet pile seal profiles, than the aforementioned prior art methods. A further object is to provide a tool for such a method that is particularly robust and easy to use.